Cons:

FIFA Street 3 is the first good game in the franchise. There, we said it. After two efforts as misguided as Wayne Rooney's stomp on Carvalho in the last World Cup, EA Sports BIG has managed to put one in the net. It's not a consistently great game, but it's got flashes of brilliant fun that overcome its limited play options. FIFA Street 3's formula is a Frankenstein of the core gameplay that made NBA Street Homecourt a winner and the sharp AI in FIFA 08 that helped sculpt that game's improved experience.

FS3 is a departure from its mediocre lineage in more than one way. Visually, it's striking beyond simply its crisp HD graphics. The game's 250 players (from 18 countries, mostly European) have all been retooled into stylized caricatures of themselves, which works well for the game. They're not as exaggerated as Team Fortress 2, but they're designed within three character styles (tall and lanky, athletic, and stocky), which fit cover stars Peter Crouch, Ronaldinho, and Gennaro Gattuso and give you a quick visual reference when you're on the pitch.

The gameplay runs quite fluidly. The animation is good but not always great on the PS3 version, while the Xbox 360 game mostly runs at 60 frames per second and looks quite exceptional. The environments, from a Middle Eastern oil rig to a pitch on top of a Tokyo rooftop, are also as stylized as the players. They're very colorful and aesthetically pleasing. There's little argument that FS3 is a handsome game, and the soundtrack matches up with the rest of the presentation, from electro house beats to Brazilian baile funk.

The controls jell in a way that prior FS titles hadn't. Although it's missing familiar controls from traditional FIFA, like slide tackles and through passes, it feels really intuitive for anyone who's played FIFA games for years. The trick system coalesces well with soccer gameplay. With a flick of the right stick you can perform feints and other tricks with more ease than in traditional soccer titles. With a button tap, you can do flicks and juggling moves. It's all in place to build up your Gamebreaker, which you can only fill by taking a shot on goal once you've performed enough tricks.

The teammate AI, which has modifications from FIFA 08 (obviously, with no penalty kicks or corners to worry about, EA programmed the CPU to showboat a bit), is pretty sharp. The defensive AI is an exception; it can be a little dense when it comes to aggressively securing the ball from an attack. Otherwise, teammates are good about being where they need to be on the pitch offensively, although the camera can sometimes make it tough to see where they are, which can make passing a leap of faith.

For one-off games, such as the demo on Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store, FS3 is a really fun experience that's not too hard to pick up and play. A close match can get really harrowing, especially when you're playing with friends. The game's biggest problem, and the one that keeps it from greatness, lies within the lack of overall depth beyond a quick match.